Silva is Premier League sacking number five

The Premier League’s worst kept secret was out of the bag last night when Everton finally pulled the plug on Marco Silva less than 24 hours after they’d lost the Merseyside derby across the park at Anfield.

The midweek results had seen Everton drop into the bottom three in what is, to be fair, a very tight Premier League table, but speculation over Silva’s future has been ongoing for some considerable time.

He’d been chased by them to replace Ronald Koeman during the 2017/18 season when he was at Watford with the Watford chief Scott Duxbury making it very clear that they don’t change manager or head coach during the season, something they’ve now done three times since.

Silva did take Everton to an eighth place finish last season, his only full season at Goodison but in his time there he’s certainly splashed the cash with close to £200 million having been spent in transfer fees on new players with only around a third of that recouped with sales, most notably Ademola Lookman and Idrissa Gueye.

The search for a new manager is underway. Initially it was thought it would be between former manager David Moyes and Eddie Howe who, it was reported, is a lifelong Evertonian. However, Howe does seem to have dropped down the pecking order somewhat with Vitor Pereira now edging ahead of Moyes.

So that’s number five in the Premier League sackings this season. Javi Gracia was the first to go at Watford to be followed by the North London pair Mauricio Pochettino and Unai Emery at Spurs and Arsenal. Watford moved ahead again when they dismissed Quique Sánchez Flores and now their former manager is on the list.

I’ve seen Marco Silva described as a fraud this week. I have to admit I really don’t understand how he keeps getting jobs. Despite an early revival, he took Hull down with them suffering some horrendous losses towards the end of the season and he’s since been sacked at both Watford and Everton.

I don’t expect Everton to be in the bottom three come May, neither do I expect Marco Silva to have landed another Premier League job although, I suppose, nothing would surprise me at Watford as they continue their search for a third manager this season although the disrespectful Nigel Pearson is now odds on favourite to go there.